


You and Me, and All the Stars That We Can See

by foxymoley, hazelNuts



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Captain Dean, First Date, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Implied Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, M/M, Outer Space, Pilot Castiel, Pining, Space Battles, Spaceships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 12:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15049442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxymoley/pseuds/foxymoley, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelNuts/pseuds/hazelNuts
Summary: Dean is the captain of the Hunter. He and his crew traverse the voids of space in search of jobs and lend a helping hand where they can. After helping out a young girl forced to marry a man she despises, the Hunter left barely space-worthy. Castiel, Dean's pilot, knows a great place to get her fixed. And Dean, well, he's never been much good at saying no to Cas.





	You and Me, and All the Stars That We Can See

**Author's Note:**

> If you think there any tags missing, please let us know in the comments.
> 
> Fic by hazelNuts/[fandom-madnessess](http://fandom-madnessess.tumblr.com/)  
> The super gorgeous art is made by @foxymoley  
> Betad by the lovely [mychemicalrachel](https://mychemicalrachel.tumblr.com/)

[ ](https://ibb.co/bvkkH8)

 

 Dean checks his watch, then looks at the wall surrounding Crowley’s estate with unease. They should’ve been here by now. He can’t believe Eileen and Charlie got lost in there; they poured over the blueprints for days, memorizing every room and hallway. Something must’ve gone wrong. They tripped an alarm, got spotted by a guard.

He looks around at his crew, and Claire, to see if any of them are getting worried. Jack has his eyes fixed on the wall like it’ll tell him all the secrets of the universe if he stares long enough, but he’s been doing that since they arrived. Cas is facing away from him, standing guard, making sure their escape route doesn’t get blocked or discovered. Claire is leaning against her car—a beat-up, out-of-date family car—toying with her knife and looking like she’s waiting for her coffee order.

After another couple of anxious minutes, Dean hears running footsteps from the other side of the wall. The rope they’d thrown over it goes taut.

‘Finally,’ Dean mutters.

Eileen is the first one over, followed by Charlie, and then something straight out of Dean’s nightmares appears. The bright, almost fluorescent, yellow monstrosity heaves itself on top of the wall, groaning and panting. Blood-red stripes, like gouges torn in its yellow flesh, on the shoulders. The pointed, yellow head gleams in the streetlights. A veil covers its features.

[ ](https://ibb.co/dV5mYy)

‘That is some dress,’ Dean says, taking a step back. He can’t even make out the girl hidden inside all those layers of fabric.

‘We tried to get her out of it before we left,’ Charlie explains their lateness. ‘But there’s a lot of buttons and laces, and we were in a bit of a hurry. Not sure it mattered much, because that dress weighs a ton and Kaia couldn’t run very fast in it.’

‘I can imagine,’ Dean says. He has to give it to Crowley, the guy’s got no taste at all.

The girl is crouched on the wall, frozen, staring down, and not for the first time since starting this rescue mission, Dean wishes he could’ve brought Sam with them. His giant of a brother could easily pluck Kaia off the wall and put her safely on the ground. But since they’d all agreed Kaia would be more comfortable with Charlie and Eileen bursting into her room, and Cas was to lead their escape through this maze of a city with his uncanny sense of direction, and Dean doesn’t trust Jack to be alone with his ship yet, Sam was the one to stay behind and look after the Hunter.

‘I’ll catch you!’ Claire yells up.

Dean jumps. He hadn’t noticed the girl walking up next to him. It’s the first thing she’s said all night, aside from a brief hello when she arrived.

Kaia tilts her head, her headdress gleaming as the light on it shifts. ‘Okay,’ she finally says.

She chucks her shoes down first, the slippers landing by Claire’s feet with soft _thud_ , then she jumps. The yellow dress flaps. The veils flips over Kaia’s head and streams behind her, revealing young and scared, but determined, features. Jewels and fabric shine brightly as she lands in Claire’s outstretched arms. Claire stumbles back, her knees buckling under the combined weight of the girl and the dress, but Dean quickly moves behind her. He almost loses his footing himself, but a pair of hands grab his arm and hold tight. Dean shoots Cas a grateful look for the quick save.

‘Told you,’ Claire grins, ignoring the two men that just saved her dignity, only having eyes for the girl in her arms.

Kaia smiles back, her hands gripping Claire’s shoulders. ‘Yes, you did.’

Dean exchanges a look with Cas and Charlie. Looks like Kaia found her knight in, well, not exactly shining armour, but more her knight in faded jeans and leather jacket. Though Dean suspects Claire is more lethal than many knights. Cas grins and shakes his head, before he goes back to keeping watch. Charlie waggles her eyebrows and smirks, but there’s no time for jokes and teasing; yelling and the barking of dogs is coming from the house.

‘I think they know you’re gone,’ Jack says matter of factly.

‘Right. Get in,’ Claire says. She lets go of Kaia to open the passenger door for her.

‘Wait,’ Eileen says. She points at where Claire tucked her knife back into her boot. ‘Can you cut the dress off?’ Then she turns to Charlie. ‘Help me get this thing off her head.’

As the women expertly rid Kaia of her dress and headgear, Dean gets to look at it a little closer and isn’t grateful for it. It looks worse up close. In the dark and from a distance, he hadn’t realized how much lace and muslin was on this thing, next to silk and velvet, and many other fabrics Dean doesn’t know the names of. Did Crowley commission this dress to have every fabric in the known universe in it?

The headdress, that is so heavy Dean thinks it might be solid gold, is shoved into Dean’s arms. Jack gets the shoes, and the dress is divided between Charlie, Eileen, and Cas.

‘Let’s leave them a trail,’ Eileen grins.

Claire hands her jacket to Kaia, who is now left standing in a bone white underskirt and corset, and Eileen uses the sleeve of the dress to wipe some of the makeup off Kaia’s face. The girl looks young and small without the ostentatious wedding dress, but she looks like a person, and she’s probably feeling more like one too, Dean thinks, going by the tentative smile that’s curling her lips.

Claire quickly helps Kaia into the car, but Dean gestures at Cas to stop them before the two girls can drive off. He tugs off the jewels embroidered onto the dress and hands them to Kaia through her open window.

‘A little repayment from Crowley for what he put you through,’ he says. ‘You deserve more, but it’s a start.’

Kaia’s smile brightens, and Claire nods at Dean before turning to the girl next to her. ‘Welcome to the Wayward Sisters and your life of crime.’

Dean can just see the girls exchanging a fist bump as Claire drives off at a reasonable speed, the better to blend in with the traffic.

The shouts and barking of dogs is getting closer and Dean and his crew remember where they are: at the back off a crime-lord’s estate just after his bride was stolen.

‘Go! Go! Go!’ Dean yells.

They take off, into the city, never stopping, dropping bits of Kaia’s wedding outfit as they go, a luminescent trail of ugly breadcrumbs. It doesn’t take long before they run out of wedding dress, but at that point it doesn’t matter. Crowley’s goons are after them, not Claire and Kaia, who will have been swallowed up by the city by now, completely untraceable.

Dean looks over his shoulder. He can’t see anyone following, but that doesn’t mean anything. Crowley’s goons are more familiar with this city, will know shortcuts that Cas doesn’t, not to mention the almost unlimited resources. They could pop up anywhere, with any kind of weapon.

He’s barely finished the thought when the whine of hoverbikes reaches his ears.

_Shit._

‘Faster!’ Dean yells, knowing there’s no way they can outrun those bikes.

For a second he curses not having taken more time in planning Kaia’s rescue, recruited some allies of their own in the city, get some hoverbikes of their own, but they hadn’t had more time. If they’d arrived only an hour later, Kaia would’ve been married to Crowley and any attempt at escape or rescue would’ve been that much more dangerous.

Kaia’s parents died when she was barely four years old, at which point she was given to an aunt who lived on a different planet and had no love for children. The aunt was only too happy to get Kaia off her hands, and give the girl to Crowley in exchange for some money and being invited to more exclusive parties. Kaia, of course, didn’t like the idea being married off to a man almost three times her age, and with a bad reputation. She tried to run away, but each time got caught. Eventually she managed to send out a distress signal, which the Hunter picked up. Dean and his crew rushed to the girl’s aid without a second thought, or much of a plan. The plan only came together, more less, when Charlie suggested letting the Wayward Sisters take the girl in instead of adding her to their own crew. Kaia would be safe with them, and Jody would make sure she found her place in the little band of robbers.

Dean glances over his shoulder again, and this time he can see the light bouncing off the shiny hoverbikes in the distance. People are jumping out of the way, and the hoverbikes are gaining fast.

‘Son of bitch,’ Dean groans and tries to run faster, but he’s getting tired and so are the others.

He starts looking around for someplace to hide, an alley, a dumpster, anything, when the rumble of a plain-guzzler drowns out the whine of the hoverbikes. It’s like music to Dean’s ears.

Not a lot of people drive a plain-guzzler in the city, since, as the name explains, they’re built to drive on the open plains. They’re too bulky for the tight corners and winding streets of most cities, and it’s almost impossible to take advantage of their speed here. So it’s not just a matter of whether people drive them in the city, but whether they _can_ , and Dean knows one person who is really, really good at it.

The rumble of the plain-guzzler quickly comes closer, until the car shoots out of a side street twenty feet ahead of them, already braking with all it’s might. The driver throws the steering wheel to the left and the car spins to a stop right next to them. The doors are thrown open.

‘Get in!’ Jody shouts.

She doesn’t have to tell them twice. Cas dives into the backseat. Jack goes after him. Charlie takes the front seat and pulls Eileen into her lap. Dean takes the final spot in the backseat, and the doors slam shut.

‘Thanks,’ Dean gasps. His hand is pressed to his chest, his heart beating wildly.

‘Claire called, said you might need a little help getting out of here,’ Jody says, throwing him a grin over her shoulder.

‘So they’re fine?’ Cas asks, his voice laced with worry.

‘They’re fine,’ Jody assures them. Her eyes are trained on the road in front of her, and she navigates the bulky vehicle seemingly effortless through the streets. ‘I’m more worried about us, than them.’

Jody soon has them out of the city and into the fields where Dean illegally parked the Hunter. If you’re gonna steal a guy’s bride, you better make sure you don’t park somewhere he can stop you from leaving. The plain-guzzler swerves to a stop a couple feet from the airlock Sam is waiting at, door open and hand on the button that’ll close it.

Dean looks over his shoulder as he sprints for the door. Not a hoverbike in sight, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Crowley’s men might be on their way to their own ships, ships with a lot more firepower than his Baby.

No time is wasted in getting ready for lift-off. Dean barely takes the time to strap himself in as he takes his seat next to Cas, behind the controls. They don’t have time to do the routine checks, they’ll have to do those later, if they make it. For now, it’s enough to know that they have enough fuel to get halfway across the galaxy.

‘Taking off,’ is all the warning Cas gives them before pushing the throttle forward and pulling the steer towards himself.

Take off is as smooth, if a little faster, as ever, and Dean throws a proud smile at the man sitting next to him. ‘Good job,’ he says, clapping Cas on the shoulder.

‘You can tell me that when I’ve actually gotten us out of here,’ Cas grumbles, but he acknowledges Dean’s smile by returning it, before his brow furrows into a frown again.

At their current speed, it only takes a minute before they’ve cleared the atmosphere. They shoot up out of the mist, and their sensors start going crazy just as Charlie shouts, ‘We’ve got a couple hounds on our tail!’

‘Shit,’ Dean mutters. ‘Sam? Eileen?’

[ ](https://ibb.co/iiZR78)

‘Already at the guns,’ Sam tells him over the coms.

‘Cas, how fast is the fastest you can get us to hyperspace?’ Dean asks.

‘I need a minute to make sure we have a clear flightpath,’ Cas says. His hands fly across the controls, pushing not just the ship, but also the computer and scanners to their limit.

Dean unlocks his belt to check their ammunition, make sure Sam and Eileen are all loaded up. The first blast from the hounds pursuing them hits, and he tumbles out of the chair, into Cas’ side.

‘Son of a bitch,’ he groans.

‘You hurt?’ Cas asks.

‘I’m fine,’ Dean assures him. The only thing that’s gotten a little dented is his pride.

He finds his feet and reaches down to turn on his magnetic boots. What he finds is not the hard, cool surface of the mag-boots, but the soft leather of his ground boots. Dean curses again. They were in such a hurry they forgot to change into even the most basic gear. He’ll have to do without, though, because Sam and Eileen are returning fire, and it’s been a couple weeks since they bought new ammo for the ship’s guns.

He stumbles past Charlie and Jack, who are still strapped in. Jack hasn’t been in a fight yet, and the boy’s eyes are wide with excitement and terror. Charlie mostly looks annoyed. She has a lot of talents, but gun fights aren’t amongst them, and Dean knows it bothers her that she’s pretty much useless now.

Finally, he reaches the ammunitions hold between the two gunner stations. It’s not looking great. They have all the basics, but nothing strong enough, or just plain _enough_ of what they do have, to fight off Crowley’s Hounds.

 

 _Just one minute_ , Dean thinks. _We don’t need to fight them off. We only have to last one minute._

Dean is halfway back to his seat, grabbing onto the walls to keep from tumbling over as his Baby shakes from the hounds’ hits and the recoils from the Hunter’s own guns, when he hears loud curses from the direction of the controls.

‘Son of a goat!’

In a non-potentially lethal situation, Cas’ odd curses never fail to pull a smile from Dean, but this is not one of those situations. ‘Tell me that’s celebratory cursing,’ Dean begs.

‘It’s celebratory cursing,’ Cas bites out. ‘I’m celebrating that our engine got hit and we might blow up if we go to hyperspace. It’s a fucking party.’

‘Hull breach?’ Dean asks, coming up behind Cas and checking the monitors.

‘No, but Dean–‘

Dean doesn’t let Cas finish. ‘We either blow ourselves up or we get blown up by Crowley’s pets. I prefer option one.’ He grabs his tool belt and goggles where they hang on the wall. ‘Go to hyperspace as soon as you can.’

‘When you’re out of the engine room,’ Cas says, nodding.

‘No, when that light turns green,’ Dean says, pointing at the engine light that is now flashing an angry red. ‘That’s an order.’

‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ Cas says, voice laced with sarcasm, but there’s no time to argue any further.

Dean makes his way to the hatch to the engine room, tying a piece of cloth over his nose and mouth and putting on the goggles before he drops down it. There’s smoke everywhere, and even with the protection he has, his throat and nostrils are soon burning.

It doesn’t take him long to locate the problem. When they picked up Kaia’s distress signal the Hunter was on her way to a small, inter-planet repair station to get a little work done on her innards. The pipes that needed replacing have given way under strain of their sudden take-off and the none too gentle shaking they’re getting from the fight. Dean can’t really fix them right now, all he can do is hope to make them hold out long enough for them to get out of here. He grabs the tape from his belt and starts winding it around one pipe, closing up a break. He quickly moves on to the next to tape it back into place.

The smoke is starting to clear, and Dean can take a quick look around, his heart aching for his ship. There’s not much more he can do right now, except keep his fingers crossed. He really should’ve taken her in for a good maintenance job weeks ago.

‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he says, putting one of his hands on the hull. ‘You’ll get a mani-pedi when you’ve taken us out of here. Speaking of, what the hell is taking Cas so long?’ he continues. He climbs out of the engine room, and is just about to put that question to his pilot when he catches Cas looking at him.

‘Hold on!’ Cas yells before Dean can reprimand him.

Dean grabs onto Jack’s legs, which is the nearest thing available, curls up, and braces his feet against the wall beneath Jack’s seat.

The ship complains and whines as Cas pushes her into hyperspace. It doesn’t last more than a minute, but Dean’s hands and legs are cramped up when they finally come out and he can relax.

‘Sweet mother of stars,’ he groans, rolling onto his back and flexing his fingers.

‘You okay, Dean?’ Jack asks, leaning over as much has his seatbelts allow, eyebrows scrunched together in worry.

The boy looks a little funny, distorted, and Dean realizes he still has his goggles on. He pulls them off and drops them on the floor.

‘All good,’ Dean says. He stretches long, and his back straightens out with a satisfying pop.

At which point, the artificial gravity gives out.

Dean sighs as he floats upwards amongst all the loose objects they didn’t have a chance to secure. His goggles tap against his arm and he swats them away. This really is the last thing they need. Checking the ship is going to be a lot trickier with the air cluttered up.

‘It’s not that bad.’ Cas says, floating up next to him. ‘She’s holding up pretty well.’ He places a reassuring hand on Dean’s shoulder and squeezes. The gesture is far more comforting than the words, and Dean feels the loss keenly when Cas removes his hand.

‘Can she still move?’ Dean asks, eyebrows raised.

Cas shakes his head. ‘We’re dead in the water.’

Dean raises his eyebrows. ‘That’s your definition of holding up pretty well?’

‘We haven’t blown up,’ Cas shrugs with a smile. ‘I have faith we can work around anything, as long as we don’t blow up.’

Dean huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. Cas is right. His crew is smart and creative, and they’re all alive and unharmed. Now to make sure it stays that way: time to get to work.

‘Alright, everyone,’ he says when Sam and Eileen have come out of the gunner stations. He points to the couple. ‘You two check the outside. Charlie, you’re on coms and checking all systems. Life support first, then go down to lowest priority. Jack, you’re on inventory. Check food and spare parts. Cas, you’re with me in the engine room. We gotta get this baby moving again.’

‘Uhm,’ Eileen starts hesitantly.

Dean looks at her, waiting for her to go on.

‘I don’t think my implant’s working right,’ Eileen continues. ‘Because it sounded like you said you wanted to have a baby.’

When Eileen was a baby, the space station she was on exploded, leaving her without her parents and her hearing. The loss of her hearing was to the extent that surgery couldn’t fix it, which left a hearing implant, a small device that replaced the eardrums and sent signals to her brain, as her only option if she wanted to have a career in space flight. She’d scraped enough money together for one by the time she turned sixteen, but the model she got was already outdated back then. Now, fifteen years later, it’s practically an antique and in dire need of an upgrade. It’s constantly on the fritz and there’s only so much Dean and Charlie can do. Unfortunately, hearing implants haven’t gotten any cheaper.

‘I’ll look at it later, okay?’ Dean says and signs at the same time, trying not to let his annoyance show too much. ‘Change of plans,’ Dean continues, he repeats part of his orders in sign language so Eileen is caught up, then says, ‘Eileen, you’re on inventory. Make sure to check the armoury, just in case.’ He hadn’t wanted to give that job to Jack, since the boy isn’t familiar with all the guns yet. ‘Cas, you’re with Sam. Jack, you’re coming with me.’

As he grabs his things and pulls himself back into the engine room, Jack on his heels, he silently curses Eileen’s faulty implant. It’s another problem on a seemingly never-ending list of problems, but he’d also looked forward to spending some semi-private time with Cas. It’s not easy to get privacy on a spaceship. The Hunter isn’t small, but with five fully grown adults, it sometimes feels that way. And while he likes Jack, and he knows the guy tries really hard, accidents seem to follow him around. Not exactly something you want in an engine room.

As they start to work, reports of the damage start flowing in through the coms. It’s not as bad as it could have been. The outside hull is a little singed, but there are no breaches, and Charlie cheerfully reports that all life support systems are working properly a minute later. The engine room is almost the same as when Dean left it before going into hyperspace. The only problem is that now the tape has melted to the pipes. He hands Jack a chisel, and they start hacking away at the hardened plastic.

A steady stream of small talk, mixed with progress reports, flows through the coms as they work, with a background of Charlie muttering code under her breath.

‘Gravity coming back in three, two, one,’ she says, just as Dean and Jack have cleared the first pipe of tape.

Dean points his feet to the floor, and they land with a _thud_ a second later. There are a hundred little crashes above them as everything drops back down. There’s also some very loud cursing.

‘Charlie, did you warn Eileen?’ Dean asks, barely holding in his laughter.

‘Shit!’ Running footsteps sound above Dean’s head as Charlie hurries to check on her friend. The coms chime with the laughter of the rest of the crew.

They’re back in flight the next day. They’re not going very fast, barely above cruising speed, and not all of the patch jobs are pretty, but they don’t need to be; they just need to hold long enough for them to get to a station where they can really fix things.

And most of the patches do hold. The only thing that has all but given up is the artificial gravity. It’s not much of a problem during the day, when they can wear their mag-boots and simply have to make sure they don’t leave anything lying around that can float up into the air-filters, but two night into their slow cruise through space, it happens during the night.

Dean is in the cockpit, trying to figure out a solution for Eileen’s hearing implant. Cas is in the seat next to him, checking their route. Cas doesn’t need to be here, the ship’s on autopilot and he’s checked it twice already. Dean’s not sure what Cas is doing here, but he’s not going to complain. They’re both wearing the matching pyjamas Charlie bought everyone for Baby’s twenty-fifth birthday, and Cas made hot chocolate in the special cups in case gravity gives out again. It feels cosy and comfortable, and Dean wishes they could have moments like this always.

‘You know I never understood that expression,’ Dean says, looking up from the readouts of the scans of the hearing implant.

‘What expression?’ Cas asks. He looks up, too. He’s frowning and taking a sip of his hot chocolate at the same time, his face looking comically pinched.

‘Being dead in the water,’ Dean answers around a smile. ‘It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I mean, you can just swim to shore or call for help.’

Cas’ lips twitch up into a smile and he tilts his head. ‘Not if you’re in the middle of the ocean.’

‘Come on. The ocean can’t be that big.’

‘You’ve never seen an ocean?’ Cas asks. He looks almost sad when he says it, like Dean is missing out on something big.

‘We grew up in a desert,’ Dean reminds him. ‘The entire planet was a desert. The biggest body of water we had there was our bathtub. The lake of Illium is the most water I’ve ever seen in one place,’ Dean adds. ‘Sam, too, probably.’

‘That’s not even a very big lake,’ Cas says. He turns away from Dean, back to the controls, and starts setting a new course.

‘What are you doing?’ Dean asks. He leans closer, trying to figure out where Cas is planning on taking them.

‘I’m going to show you the ocean,’ Cas says like it’s the most logical thing. Before Dean can protest, Cas holds up a hand to stop him. ‘There’s also an excellent space-dock where we can work on the Hunter.’

Dean thinks it over for a second.

‘Besides, it is beautiful there. We can all relax a little. We haven’t had a relaxing stop on a planet for a while now,’ Cas adds another argument to plead his case. ‘What do you say, Dean? Want me to show you the ocean?’

And how can Dean say no in the face of so much logic, and with those big blue eyes directed at him?

‘Sounds like a plan,’ Dean says. He can’t look away from Cas. It’s like he’s trapped in that gaze. He shifts in his seat so he can lean in a little closer. The pencil he was holding slips from his finger, and he feels it floating up.

[ ](https://ibb.co/cwqZmJ)

‘Come on,’ Dean grumbles, as he pulls back. The pressure of the seat against his butt lessens, and then he’s floating free.

‘I’m on it,’ Cas says. He flips himself upside down, so he’s facing the computers and starts punching the keys.

Dean tries to grab his pencil before it floats too far away, and roll all over the station once Cas has the gravity back.

‘Three, two, one,’ Cas counts down, and then gravity comes back and Dean narrowly avoids landing hard on the back of his chair.

His butt might be saved, but there’s a lot of cursing from the sleeping quarters as the sleeping crewmembers drop back into their bunks. Dean catches Castiel’s eye, and they burst out laughing.

~

The rest of the crew is ecstatic when they hear about the trip to the beach. And, as it turns out, Dean and Sam aren’t the only ones who have never seen the ocean; Jack has spent most of his life on space stations and space ships, and the closest he’s ever gotten to an ocean, are the ice oceans of Kaldur. Charlie and Eileen take pity on them, so of course proceed to tease them about it the rest of the time it takes them to get to Thinoodès.

After three more days of distant planets and even more distant stars, Dean is in the engine room. Checking his patchwork on the pipes has become a twice-daily necessity.

‘Dean, come up here,’ Cas calls him over the coms.

Dean shakes his head and climbs out of the engine room. He pulls off his gloves and goggles, and says, ‘Would it kill you to say please?’ he asks. ‘Or call me Captain? I miss those days.’ When Cas had just signed onto the Hunter, he’d been a stickler for the rules and always insisted on calling everyone by their titles.

‘Yes,’ Cas answers dryly. He takes Dean’s gloves and goggles, then points out the window. ‘Look.’

‘Holy shit,’ Dean whispers in awe.

Before them is their destination, the planet Thinoodès, big and so very blue.

‘All that blue is water?’

‘It is.’

Dean had known the planet was mostly ocean, strewn with islands that range from barely able to support a family, to being inhabited by several million families, but he hadn’t been able to imagine it. Even the pictures he’d looked up didn’t do it any justice.

‘Bullshit,’ Dean laughs, feeling giddy. ‘How is that possible? How can one planet have so much water, and others have almost none?’

Cas shrugs and smiles, a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Maybe the universe did it to make us go exploring, to make us look for places that are nothing like what we know.’

‘Maybe,’ Dean says. He looks back out the window. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he whispers.

‘Just wait till we get closer,’ Cas says. He squeezes Dean’s hand, then goes back to the controls to start their landing sequence.

Dean drops into the chair next to Cas and straps himself in. He can’t look away from that big blue ball in the sky, growing bigger and bigger, until he can no longer see the darkness of space around its edges. He can make out the islands, some green, others brown, many a rainbow of colours. He can see the darker blues of the deeps, and the lighter blues of the shallows. He can see huge ships that look insignificant compared to the vast size of the ocean surrounding them. It’s beautiful, but it’s also a little terrifying, and completely hypnotizing.

Dean doesn’t pull out of the trance until they’ve almost landed. Cas has arranged for them to stay on a medium sized island, with rolling green hills full of life, a strip of white beach on one side, and sheer cliffs on the other.

‘Thank you,’ Dean says, turning to Cas and grabbing the pilot’s arm. Everyone else is already outside, being herded into a small bus that will take them to their hotel. ‘We really needed this.’

‘Then we should do this more often.’

Before Dean can answer him, Charlie pokes her head back inside to tell them they’ll leave without them if they don’t hurry. Dean exchanges a quick word with the dockmaster when he gets out, and takes a looks around. The docks are pretty basic, but it’ll have everything they need to fix his baby up, and have her purring like a kitten.

They’re in a big suite with three bedrooms. Sam and Eileen take one, Charlie and Jack the one next to them, and Dean commandeers the biggest one for him and Cas, since he’s the Captain. There’s a nervous flutter at the sight of the one bed, even though the bed is so big they could both lie on it, spread-eagled, without touching. And they’ve shared sleeping quarters before, ones that were far more cramped than this one. So, there really isn’t anything to be nervous about.

He drops his bag on his side of the bed.

‘Still want me to show you the ocean?’ Cas asks as he drops his own bag on the other side.

‘I thought you already had?’

‘I meant, do you want to go out on it with me?’

‘You mean like in a boat?’

‘That’s generally the idea, yes.’

Dean hesitates. The size of the sea truly terrifies him.

‘Dean,’ Cas says, his voice deep and serious, and Dean looks up, immediately caught by the serious look in Cas’ eyes. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you.’

‘I know,’ Dean says. He takes a deep breath. ‘Alright, let’s go.’

They change into clothes more suitable for the beach, let the others know where they’re going, then make their way down.

Dean’s fears melt away as they walk through the small town to the harbour. The air warm and relaxing, full of laughter and music and the smell of food. If he ever decides to give up space, he can easily imagine himself settling in a place like this.

Cas seems to know his way around, like he does everywhere, and has no problem finding a boat rental. This one has real wooden boats, with paddles and a small engine at the back. The man from the rental gives them some quick instructions and cautions, and Dean feels the fear that had melted away on their walk bubbling up again. That fear grows even more as he steps into the boat to find the floor a lot less steady than he expected. The boat moves with the waves, and he almost loses his balance. Cas grabs him by the arms and guides him down to sit next to him. Dean suppresses the urge to wrap himself around Cas, for safety of course, only because Cas needs room to steer the boat.

Their little boat cuts through the waves more easily than Dean expected, and with the almost familiar rumble of the engine, it doesn’t take him more than ten minutes to start relaxing. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The wind is warm in his face, but the spray of the water is cool. The smell is completely unfamiliar to him. His mind grapples, and fails, to describe it.

He opens his eyes again when he feels them slowing down, the rumble of the engine fading to almost nothing, and soon drowned out by the waves slapping against the side of the boat. There is nothing but water in front of him, no land, no other boats. It’s almost like being in space. Almost.

He looks away from the water, to Cas.

‘It’s the same colour as your eyes,’ he blurts out. He flushes from the awe in his voice. ‘The water,’ he continues, ‘it’s the same blue.’

‘Thank you,’ Cas says. He smiles, and Dean thinks his cheeks are looking a little flushed too. It’s hard to tell with sunglasses on.

They sit there, staring at each other for a minute.

‘So…’ Dean starts when he can’t take the silence anymore. ‘What now?’

‘Whatever you want,’ Cas says. His voice is deep, but soft. ‘We can go out a little further, or stay here. Or we can go back.’

‘No,’ Dean quickly says. ‘Let’s not go back yet.’

‘Okay.’

Silence falls between them again, and this time Dean decides to let it be. He looks away from Cas, back out over the ocean.

 _I can do this_ , he thinks. _We_ _’_ _re all alone. No one to interrupt us. And if Cas doesn_ _’_ _t feel the same, nobody else will know about this._

Slowly, carefully, Dean inches closer to Cas, until they’re pressed together from foot, to thigh, to shoulder. Dean’s heart is trying to jump out of his chest, and his head feels light, but then Cas wraps his arm around Dean’s waist, and Dean melts into him.

‘Cas?’

‘Yeah?’

‘This is going to work, right?’

‘There’s really only one way to find out.’

Dean looks up and finds Cas smiling at him. He rolls his eyes, but he can’t deny that Cas is right. He closes what little distance is left between them and presses his lips to Cas’. He tangles one hand in Cas’ hair, using it to tilt Cas’s head and find that perfect, most delicious angle. He shifts forward, half planning on crawling into Cas’ lap. The boat rocks violently at the sudden shift in weight. Dean pulls back and lets go of Cas with a gasp. Grabbing the side of the boat with one hand, and Cas’ arm with the other, he locks every muscle in body, squeezing his eyes shut and praying that he’ll survive long enough to kiss Cas at least one more time.

Bright laughter pulls him out of his panic. He opens his eyes to glare at the man.

‘You know I can’t swim, right?’ Dean bites out. ‘If I go overboard…’

‘I would never let you drown,’ Cas says, placing a placating hand against Dean’s cheek.

Dean leans into it, but he doesn’t tone down his glare.

‘Then what’s so funny?’

‘Come here,’ Cas says. He moves off the bench and lies down on the bottom of the boat and opens his arms.

Dean blinks, stunned, unable to move as he feels his insides melt at the sight. After taking a moment to gather his courage, he carefully, slowly, lowers himself down next to Cas. There isn’t a whole lot of space and he has to lie on his side, his head on Cas’ chest, to make them fit. Not that he’s complaining. The slapping of the water against the side of the boat is louder here, but without being able to see the waves, it’s also a lot more comforting.

‘Look up,’ Cas tells him, as he points up. ‘That’s _our_ ocean. The sky. Space. It’s a lot bigger than these seas, a lot more dangerous, but you wouldn’t think twice about a spacewalk. That’s what’s funny’

‘I have a suit for that,’ Dean reminds him.

‘There’s suits for going under water,’ Cas shrugs.

‘Will you show me that too?’ Dean asks. ‘What’s under water?’

‘How about I first teach you how to swim?’

‘Okay.’ Dean closes his eyes and wraps his arms a little tighter around Cas. ‘Tomorrow. Let’s stay here for a little longer.’

‘We can stay as long as you want.’

[ ](https://ibb.co/gSQYWJ)


End file.
